"Yes!"
"A victim?"
Saton frowned.
"There was also," he continued, "my hostess, Lady Mary Rochester."
"A silly, fluffy little woman," Madame declared. "Did she flirt?"
"Not with me, at any rate," Saton answered.
"Too experienced," Madame remarked. "Perhaps too good a judge of your s.e.x. Who else?"
"Lady Marrabel."
"A very beautiful woman, I have heard," Madame remarked. "Also young, I believe. Also, I presume, a victim."
"It is not kind of you," Saton protested. "These women were staying in the house. One has to make oneself agreeable to them."
"Someone else was staying in the house," Madame continued, fixing her brilliant eyes upon his face. "Someone else, I see, died there."
"You mean Lord Guerdon?" Saton muttered, softly.
"He died there," she said, nodding. "Bertrand, did he--did he recognise you?"
"He would have done," Saton said slowly, "if he had not died. He was just beginning to remember."
She looked at him curiously for several minutes.
"Well," she said, "I ask no questions. Perhaps it is wiser not. But remember this, Bertrand, I know something of the world, and the men and women who live in it. You are a born deceiver of women. It is the role which nature meant you to play. You can turn them, if you will, inside out. Perhaps you think you do the same with me. Let that go.
And remember this. Have as little to do with men as possible. Your very strength with women would be your very weakness with men.
Remember, I have warned you."
"You don"t flatter me," he said, a little unpleasantly.
"Bah!" she answered. "Why should you and I play with words? We know one another for what we are. Give me your hands."
He held them out. She took them suddenly in hers and drew him towards her.
"Kiss me!" she commanded.
He obeyed at once. Then she thrust him away.
"I go with you to this conversazione to-night," she said. "It is well that we should sometimes be seen together. I shall let it be known that you are my adopted son."
"That is as you will," he said, with secret satisfaction.
"Why not?" she declared. "I never had a son, but I"m foolish enough to care for you quite as much as I could for any child of my own. Go and get ready. We dine at seven.--No! come back."
She placed her long, clawlike fingers upon his shoulders, and kissed him on both cheeks. She held him tightly by the arms, as though there was something else she would have said--her lips a little parted, her eyes brilliant.
"Go and get ready," she said abruptly. "Look your prettiest. You have a chance to make friends to-night."
CHAPTER XI
A BUSY EVENING
The conversazione was, in its way, a brilliant gathering. There were present scientists, men of letters, artists, with a very fair sprinkling of society people, always anxious to absorb any new sensation. One saw there amongst the white-haired men, pa.s.sing backwards and forwards, or talking together in little knots, professors whose names were famous throughout Europe.
A very great man indeed brought Saton up to Pauline with a little word of explanation.
"I am sure," he said to her--she was one of his oldest friends--"that you will be glad to meet the gentleman whose brilliant paper has interested us all so much. This is Lady Marrabel, Saton, whose father was professor at Oxford before your day."
The great man pa.s.sed on. Pauline"s first impulse had been to hold out her hand, but she had immediately withdrawn it. Saton contented himself with a grave bow.
"I am afraid, Lady Marrabel," he said, "that you are prejudiced against me."
"I think not," she answered. "Naturally, seeing you so suddenly brought into my mind the terrible occurrence of only a few days ago."
"An occurrence," he declared, "which no one could regret so greatly as myself. But apart from that, Lady Marrabel, I am afraid that you are not prepared to do me justice. You look at me through Rochester"s eyes, and I am quite sure that all his days Rochester will believe that I am more or less of a charlatan."
"Your paper was very wonderful, Mr. Saton," she said slowly. "I am convinced that Mr. Rochester would have admitted that himself if he had been here."
"He might," Saton said. "He might have admitted that much, with a supercilious smile and a little shrug of the shoulders. Rochester is a clever man, I believe, but he is absolutely insular. There is a belt of prejudice around him, to the hardening of which centuries have come and gone. You are not, you cannot be like that," he continued with conviction. "There is truth in these things. I am not an ignorant mountebank, posing as a Messiah of science. Look at the men and women who are here to-night. They know a little. They understand a little.
They are only eager to see a little further through the shadows. I do not ask you to become a convert. I ask you only to believe that I speak of the things in which I have faith."
"I am quite sure that you do," she answered, with a marked access of cordiality in her tone. "Believe me, it was not from any distrust of that sort that I perhaps looked strangely at you when you came up. You must remember that it is a very short time since our last meeting. One does not often come face to face with a tragedy like that."
"You are right," he answered. "It was awful. Yet you saw how they drove me on. I spoke what I felt and knew. It is not often that those things come to one, but that there was death in the room that night I knew as surely as I am sitting with you here now. They goaded me on to speak of it. I could not help it."
"It was very terrible and very wonderful," she said, looking at him with troubled eyes. "They say that Lady Mary is still suffering from the shock."
"It might have happened at any moment," he reminded her. "The man had heart disease. He had had his warning. He knew very well that the end might come at any moment."
"That is true, I suppose," she admitted. "The medical examination seemed to account easily enough for his death. Yet there was something uncanny about it."
"The party broke up the next day, I suppose," he continued. "I have been down in the country, but I have heard nothing."
"We left before the funeral, of course," she answered.
"Fortunately for me," he remarked, "I had important things to think of. I had to prepare this paper. The invitation to read it came quite unexpectedly. I have been in London for so short a time, indeed, that I scarcely expected the honor of being asked to take any share in a meeting so important as this."
"I do not see why you should be surprised," she said.
"You certainly seem to have gone as far in the study of occultism as any of those others."